In image processing, container formats are used to set out how data is to be stored within a file. Existing image, sequence, and video containers are configured to store data so that it can be retrieved and displayed as accurately as possible, while also keeping the file size as small as possible. This balance between fidelity and data compression is handled in different ways by different image and video containers, with some containers being configured for high fidelity to allow for a higher quality of data reproduction, and others being configured to allow for smaller file sizes through data compression.
The quality of image and video containers are generally judged using psychovisual heuristics and evaluations as primary criterion, by estimating how closely a reconstructed image or video resembles the source data from the point of view of a human viewer. In the interest of performance and bandwidth, containers that have widespread deployment are typically optimized for visual structural similarity (SSIM) as opposed to strictly numerical signal accuracy. In other words, the quality of the data stored within the container is judged based on how similar the resulting image or video looks to a human viewer, rather than how similar it is to the source data numerically. While image containers and video containers are well established for storing images and image sequence files containing visual colour data, containers that have been designed for visual colour information are not well suited to storing non-colour data.
It is desired to address or ameliorate one or more shortcomings or disadvantages associated with prior systems for the packing and unpacking of image and video data, or to at least provide a useful alternative thereto.
Any discussion of documents, acts, materials, devices, articles or the like which has been included in the present specification is not to be taken as an admission that any or all of these matters form part of the prior art base or were common general knowledge in the field relevant to the present disclosure as it existed before the priority date of each claim of this application.
Throughout this specification the word “comprise”, or variations such as “comprises” or “comprising”, will be understood to imply the inclusion of a stated element, integer or step, or group of elements, integers or steps, but not the exclusion of any other element, integer or step, or group of elements, integers or steps.